tuxi:
Hi..I work in a small office having a LAN of 5 computers. All computer needs to access the internet frequently. But here access to internet is very expensive. So we have ISDN 128 kbps connection which is a dialup connection. I was using windows XP pro on my server computer and win98 on clients as the clients machine are not of very high end. Every thing was fine but I was always asked by my boss if I can do something so that our browsing experience can get better. So start looking and then used some caching software for windows.. But as I am always interested in learning new a new thing I came in the influence of Linux . Then I installed it one of my workstation and then came to understand that linux can be good as M$ so I installed it on server also.. Being experienced in windows not helped me much and I had to learn a lot in Linux as a young child learn his nursery school and then move up and up. Now after lots of frustrating days and night, lots of hit and trials I am now little experienced in Linux. I found that Linux is so versatile but it is harder than windows to manage and implement. Also it is much harder for those who had to do specific work from it in no time.So I made Lan server run linux and was using it as proxy caching server , also DNS for LAN, etc. just to increase surfing experience on our LAN. I was impressed that squid has just doubled the performance and it was all fine for 1 month but slowly I found that my internet speed is slow.. I thought it might the fault of ISP but no.. When I run windows XP pro as simple internet sharing machine without any caching etc. was giving better than linux machine. I know earlier my linux machine was giving what I want but now it is not. So tried to figure it out. But I donno what is the fault. I reinstalled the squid, cleared the cache, tweak the squid and even I reinstalled the whole Linux OS just to make sure that if I have done some changes by mistake which are affecting the system are no longer affect it. No doubt doing this I learned lots new about Linux but my main purpose was not fullfilled. I spend nights to just to verify that is it my computer or My OS.. (LINUX)I asked this thing also in the forum. People here tried to help me a lot but finally every thing was vein. I feel my self very very sad as lots of working on linux has not given any good results. Now say I have windows running then I can keep eye on my two terminal icon blinking in the system tray showing the status of connection. I easily get rought idea from there that is this my computer or my connection causeing problem but in linux I found "vnstat" etc to monitor but that was not so informative and easy as windows. Still I no one was able to tell me that wht is the reason behind the problem I am facing . Even I tried to use simple NAT as it was also used in windows internet sharing but there also linux is giving lower perfomance. Now if you have explanation for one theing than you know that why this happens and wht could be done. but when you have no explanation then you feel like you are sitting in a examination hall to give the test of Physics but you got today Bio paper which you can't even spell correctly.

So after that much of ups and downs ( downs mostly in Linux) I am back to good and trusted windows.. Now i m using XP pro. no problem at all.. Atleast I kno that I am connect and will not get in trouble untill i do somthing myself but in linux various times it happens that i m trouble but I don't even know the reason. Still due to my curious nature I am thinking to resolve my problem sooner or later but I think open source is really open to unwanted , unexplained troubles which are mostly not even documented. I had spent lots of hours on internet just to find out rigth documentation and then lot more hrs in reading them and extracting the right thing from various tutorials on one thing but Alas.. that is still no use for me.

Also I am was discouraged various times due to incompability of hardware with linux. In despite of wasting so much hrs on linux I am not even sure that how to install a driver for a hardware. Every package of driver comes with it own method and system so it seems to learn new programming language basics every time you try to install something in linux. I don't remember that what was the last time when I got things up and running in Linux in the exact way as I want ..I had to comprimise always.No standardization in software installation, in documentation and Now where makes linux a tree full of variety of fruits which can attract you easily but will lead you more trouble as you don't know which fruit is going to be harmless but you are hungary also.. ( ofcourse your trusted restraunt or market is miles away bcos you have came out far in search of OPEN and Free fruits)..

No matter what people will think after my this post.. or no matter how many are going completely through it but every one can easily understand that it is my true experience and thoughts about Linux. I don't say that I now hate open source or Linux but I am saying that why it happens to me.. I am also sure that there will be a good No. of people using linux which agree me in some or other way but are not sure to express themselves or not but I have now decided that wht i feel is truth to me...I am always thankfull to the people on the Linux community like linuxsolved.com and various others but at the end :: NOTHING>>>>

Thank you! for reading it..:(I have lots to add but I think above is enough .. I don't think i have written exact what I was trying to tell you all. Also I don't even want to give it a recheck bfore posting.. I have written what i felt..

Thank you! again you all!!

dragoncity99:
I understand how u feel. I felt the same when i first used linux. Don't take it so bad. Take a break for a while, i think u try to tackle too many things at once, it's like pouring pails of water on a glass of water.

Just relax, ok.Once u get over with your problem, ur a good linux user. Nothing starts as easy as ABC, do u get stuck when playing computer games? So what do u do? Take a break :)U think clearer when u r back.

When i first used linux, i don't know what the heck is kernel and recompile it based on documentations and it failed. So frustrating: but "I Have No Regrets, I Did My Best". At least i have the chance to get my hands on something i don't know than not doing anything to it. So cheer up man. Don't feel so bad. U just need a little concept

milkfilk:
First, I understand your frustration. Second, I can't really give much of a "quick answer".

I know what it's like to work in a small shop being the IT person. It has its advantages and disadvantages. Lots of projects, varied work but little budget. I don't know everything but I have worked in a government shop (large), a software dev shop (medium) and a law office (small). I'll try to make some points to touch on each.

1. MoneyI assure you that money is the answer to everything. People, equipment and software all cost money.

Unix SAs earn more than windows SAs with the same amount of experience. I'm not saying there are exceptions but the general rule of thumb is that Unix is more expensive. And why? Because if you really have a need for a Unix box, then you must have some amount of revenue figure attached to that box's uptime.

Take Linux for example. It runs on Intel hardware. Intel hardware isn't always a brand new, rack mount, scsi based server. Sometimes its a POS desktop. Sometimes the memory isn't ECC. I don't know what the problem with squid is, but it's probably not hardware.

What about training? When do you get to learn new stuff that makes your job easier or your company better? Never? I'd guess so. Very few shops spend on training. I'm sure a squid class exists.

What about a T1 instead of a proxy server? A fly-by-night ISP will sell a full T1 for $600/mo. That's chicken feed even for a small office. But maybe management doesn't see it that way.

How about trying something completely off the wall like multiplexing a bunch of DSL and cable modems together? You could build a linux router, order 3 (1500down / 384up) DSL lines and 1 cable modem line (3000down / 5up) for about $350 a month and have a 7.5 mbit circuit for chump change! Set up the linux router to do load balancing and you're set! (inbound might be tough if your ISP doesn't help out with IGRP or something)

We use Unix everywhere we can because we have dedicated people who do Unix day in and day out. They get better every day and spend their time in test beds and going to classes. They get paid well too but that's because we have customers paying us 30k-105k a month for hosting. If it has to be up, we use "stay up" technologies. Some of our hosts have been up for 500 days (even with planned maintenance).

This wasn't very well written but I'd summarize saying "use Unix if you want, Linux isn't the only Unix out there, Linux is good for web, mail and DNS serving, proxies suck."